I Would Need Five Thousand Dollars

For years I knew nostalgia and my heart ruled my head
And now I am regretting the silly things I've said
Like I'd go home to Millstreet to greet the flowers of May
When wild born birds are singing in woodlands far away.

And though I'd love to see old Claraghatlea it will not be this year
For I don't have much money and flight tickets are dear
I'd need five thousand dollars that seems a big amount
I only have three hundred left in my bank account.

I got over nostalgia and now for Ireland I don't pine
And I love this big Country of birdsong and sunshine
Of huge gums and acacias and paddocks wide and brown
One hundred miles in places to the nearest country town.

The mountain ash of Sherbrooke reach upwards towards the sky
And crimson rosellas chirping in small flocks as they fly
And under the cloak of darkness you hear the boobook cry
And bickering possums hissing on garden tree nearby.

A Land of rugged beauty for want of a better name
Of droughts and storms and bushfires but a great Land just the same
And when currawongs the crow sized birds pipe welcome to the rain
Places quite brown for months on end are looking green again.

And though I can't afford flight ticket in some ways I'm not poor
For I still have vivid memories of the fields of Annagloor
In the coolness of the morning the meadow pipit sing
And robin on flowering hawthorn tree pipes his melodies of Spring.

O'er wet and rushes places the curlew flies around
And pleasant sounds his fluting above his breeding ground
And o'er the lush green meadows swallows fly to and fro
And the dipper he is singing where the stream rapids flow.

The sheep are high on Clara hill tomorrow will be fine
Another day or maybe more of beautiful sunshine
The Winter wet and frosty and the fields were often gray
But we may get a fine Summer let's hope so anyway.

I've overcome nostalgia and I've left my past behind
And in this wide brown Country happiness I did find
And though the landscape may seem blackened where the bushfires have been through
You will notice some greenery within a month or two.

I would love to visit Millstreet for I still have good friends there
But flight tickets too expensive and I do not have the fare
I would need five thousand dollars that seems a big amount
And I only have three hundred left in my bank account.